uhm, no one wears spandex.
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Arrow Season 4 |OT| A Tale of Salt and Fire
- Thread starter ZeroX03
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uhm, no one wears spandex.
I don't know, super hero fabric.
I'm mostly looking for something to watch while playing Destiny so it should be good enough.
Razgriz-Specter
Member
Avoid 3 and 4 at all costs.
That would be stupid. They are nice seasons, interesting take on Ra's. Certainly compared to Batman Begins. For all the complaining about Arrow Season 3, this version was a lot more competent.
Jorok Goldblade
Member
Season 4 is pretty good up until the Flash crossover, then Olicity changes from "stable couple largely playing their classic roles" to high drama CW fare around the time of the Flash crossover.
KonradLaw
Member
S3 is worth a watch, especially if you're going to marathon it. It's terribly uneven, yes, but it also has some of the very highs the show or superhero shows as a whole ever had. Plus it's incredibly ballsy. Not everything they did worked, but they've tried some crazy stuff I just doubt anyone will ever attempt in this genre again.
By comparision S4 feels a lot more safe. And untill break it worked. It had zero bad episodes before break. And it even managed to pull the LoT built up gracefully, which Flash failed at. Which is a shame that it's starting to stumble so badly in recent weeks. And once again, the worst element of S3, which is Felicity drama, is returning to wreck havoc in S4. Ehh..
By comparision S4 feels a lot more safe. And untill break it worked. It had zero bad episodes before break. And it even managed to pull the LoT built up gracefully, which Flash failed at. Which is a shame that it's starting to stumble so badly in recent weeks. And once again, the worst element of S3, which is Felicity drama, is returning to wreck havoc in S4. Ehh..
Razgriz-Specter
Member
Completely disagree,
Ra's goes to shit immediately after that first fight and the show has literally been garbage since that episode.
At least Nolan's Ra's has some character there, this Ra's has a cool scene and then has no characterization + the dumbest scheme, finally a pathetic last showing and then
horrendous Merlyn get to freely become the new Ra's
...Trash.
Completely disagree,
Ra's goes to shit immediately after that first fight and the show has literally been garbage since that episode.
At least Nolan's Ra's has some character there, this Ra's has a cool scene and then has no characterization + the dumbest scheme, finally a pathetic last showing and then
horrendous Merlyn get to freely become the new Ra's
...Trash.
Nolan Ra's gets worked up a bit, takes revenge on Batman by torching his building, and then has one fight which he easily loses after which Batman just lets him die by leaving him on a train. Arrow Ra's wins. He achieves his plan. Oliver does lose all his support, first by the city and then by his own friends. And he forces Oliver to kill him, ending with Oliver as the new properly trained Ra's.
Septimus Prime
Member
You've actually already finished Arrow, then. After that, there's a spin off about Felicity that uses the same title and characters, but Oliver Queen's story is over.
Luckily she is more popular than him, so the spin-off will give you a lot of fun stories for years to come.
KonradLaw
Member
Yeah. What I liked about this Ra's is that he never truly felt like a pure villain when it comes to his interactions with Oliver. More like a very stern parent. There was this sense of fatherly kindness under all that brutality that made him feel very unique. Now, because of S3's stumblings the show never managed to fully realize what should have been incredibe season arc of Ra's, but the Nable's take on this character was great. And when Oliver booked end his story with that prayer, I got chills.
Jorok Goldblade
Member
If any established character inherits the Black Canary mantle, I think Nyssa is the only worthy heir.
Every time she was on Supernatural she was pretty good but all I could think is "If Seth MacFarlane had a teenage daughter."
Frank the Great
Banned
It should be Felicity. That way Green Arrow and Black Canary will be soulmates just like the comics.
KonradLaw
Member
As long as they don't bring her back every episode. Just two to three arcs per year. Also, she is doing training day.
brotkasten
Member
What is Nyssa doing right now anyway?
But Felicity is the best character. Are we talking actual Felicity centered stuff or romance drama crap? I couldn't care less about the latter.
Travelling the world with her black girlfriend. Or clearing up rogue League of Assassins.
brotkasten
Member
What if Alex Kingston (Mamma Lance) pick up the mantle dressed in that tight black leather with all those belts. Damn, it'd leave Quentin thinking "Donna who?"
Jorok Goldblade
Member
I've just gotten around to watching this episode but yeah, that previous thread title totally spoiled the episode, so thanks for that.
I routinely stay out of threads for shows when I'm behind, but it's asking a bit much to stay spoiler-free when the giveaway is right there in the title. Hope stuff like that gets clamped down on a bit faster/harder in future, regardless of which show it is.
Only mods can change thread titles. They would have to clamp down themselves.
Ah, they haven't forgotten what is supposed to be the end goal.
I really would've liked the season 5 flashbacks to be Oliver on the island all alone and turning into the survivor man. He should've come to terms that he was going to die there alone. No other people on the island, just him vs nature. He could go back to all the locations from the previous 4 seasons to scavenge for supplies, but there should be no way for him to contact the outside world. But now we have to see him in Russia for the whole season which is going to be so stupid. They should've split season 3 into Hong Kong and Russia and taken care of it all at once.
OdysseusVA
Banned
One thing they've shown is that they don't have a plan
Septimus Prime
Member
I don't believe them at all. What's be going to do, grow his hair back and lose his inhibitions about killing again? The problem with the current flashbacks is not just the glacial pacing but also that Flashback Oliver is more like Season 4 Oliver than Season 1 Oliver.
If they knew what they were building towards, they haven't been doing it, so I don't buy their excuse, since today's Oliver is just as different from the one in the first season as that Oliver is different from the one in the first flashbacks. This would actually be a perfect opportunity to highlight how much he's changed since the first season by showing us that version of him in the flashbacks, but no. We get this idol nonsense instead.
Yep. The constant focus in this year's flashbacks about redeeming him as a good man, helping him exorcise his inner darkness (e.g. his nonsensical Shado hallucination), completely misses the point of the kind of person Island Ollie is supposed to be/become and makes his post-island story redundant.
Grizzlyjin
Supersonic, idiotic, disconnecting, not respecting, who would really ever wanna go and top that
The flashbacks are starting to contradict character development. Oliver shouldn't be learning some of these lessons on the island because that wasn't the character he was in Season 1 of the show.
The post Season 2 flashbacks have been just silly. Some things are just better left to the imagination. Oliver working for Russian mobsters is something that it might be better for the audience to imagine, rather than trying to do an entire season long flashback plot of it. And then you still have to organically get him back to the island looking like he's been eating rats and hasn't shaved in years...which even right now seems silly considering where they've taken him.
The post Season 2 flashbacks have been just silly. Some things are just better left to the imagination. Oliver working for Russian mobsters is something that it might be better for the audience to imagine, rather than trying to do an entire season long flashback plot of it. And then you still have to organically get him back to the island looking like he's been eating rats and hasn't shaved in years...which even right now seems silly considering where they've taken him.
Basically. If s4 is about Oliver redeeming himself the flashbacks should've been about him falling deeper or becoming a harder person to contrast that.
S3 Hong Kong was trying to be about Waller honing Oliver into a killing machine proper. It just didn't get to the part where he wanted to resist that urge, be good, but it caused him to fail his friends. Which would contrast/ compare to him going solo in the League.
So hopefully S5 is more interesting but i feel like they're going to make the same mistakes.
Yeah, the flashbacks are getting stupid at this point.
morningbus
Serious Sam is a wicked gahbidge series for chowdaheads.
Once we get to season 6 they'll thankfully be able to hide the show's budget cuts because the flashbacks will just be clips from season 1.
I've hated the flashbacks after season 2. I was assuming that we'd see Oliver slowly become more disconnected with society, gradually see him become a stone cold killer and a bad ass but all we see is just... normal Oliver but on the Island.
I also hate how they've forced the island flashbacks to connect to the present, it all feels very shoe horned in and not at all "organic".
PHOENIXZERO
Member
Ugh... As if we needed more evidence that these people don't know what they're doing or just suck at their jobs.
Of all the things that could've been mapped out for the first five seasons it should've been the island stuff as it at least kind of seems they at least had a plan for the first two seasons before losing the plot. Oliver at this point should already be a merciless killing machine or damn near it, then they had the season premiere and made him still incompetent goof. Flashback Oliver was supposed to be heading in the opposite direction, falling into "darkness" in contrast to present day Oliver who slowly pulls himself out and they've utterly failed that, season three should've been the tipping point to go against that whole "I'm happy" thing in the present at the end of the season. But nope, they put him back on the island with some mission that they've seemingly forgotten about. I love they gave Oliver his "normal" haircut so there's zero, absolutely nothing distinctively different but hey, Stephen is happy he doesn't have to wear the wig anymore. Granted it was a shitty wig but whose fault is that?
I was coming in here to ask about his suit actually, why the fuck are they doing that stuff? :lol It's hilariously bad looking every single time.
SpideySenses
Member
Now is the perfect time to turn the flashbacks around, one of the biggest problems with them is that the writers always want to correlate them with what's happening with the main story. If after the death of Laurel, Oliver regresses and starts killing again, you can move in that direction in the flashbacks too and play with the idea that S1 Oliver might be his truest self.
The most depressing thing in that interview though is that I always thought that Arrow would pull a Lost and switch to flashforwards instead with the funeral scene being a step in that direction. But I have zero faith in them to pull it off after reading that, flashbacks in comparison are far easier to plan, between that and not planning on who died, there's no way they'd be able to pull off flashforwards on a weekly basis.
The most depressing thing in that interview though is that I always thought that Arrow would pull a Lost and switch to flashforwards instead with the funeral scene being a step in that direction. But I have zero faith in them to pull it off after reading that, flashbacks in comparison are far easier to plan, between that and not planning on who died, there's no way they'd be able to pull off flashforwards on a weekly basis.
KonradLaw
Member
They had problems, but at least the setting was different and characters were interesting. Plus whatever faults they had, they were worth it for the beautiful payoff:
I've seen Ikea-furniture with a broader emotional range!
KonradLaw
Member
Not every show is lucky to get GOAT kid actor the way Gotham has
He is also probably a lot older, Akio/Brandon Nomura seems a lot younger. Can't find an age on him. Gotham kid is 15. He also can't speak Japanese/Chinese/English.
BewareTheBatsie
Member
I'm a little opoptimistic for the season 5 flashbacks. It's the last year of then so they will hopefully focus less on forced tie ins to the present plot and more on getting Ollie the ruthless killer he will be when off the island.
KonradLaw
Member
I would be okay with that
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